Bring Your Own Device ( BYOD)

This is an exciting time in your child’s educational journey and we are excited to share it with them. Among the many great things happening in our classrooms, we are making major advances in the use of technology to help engage our students and provide opportunities otherwise not possible. The district has created an intentional and sustainable plan to provide both the training for our teachers and building staff as well as the hardware and software to support these initiatives and propel our students forward.

As we look forward in our plan, our middle and high schools will be a bring your own device (BYOD) campus starting in the 2018-2019 school year. We are very dedicated to ensuring each of our students succeed in the classroom and have the tools available to them to remain successful. This will include the need for each student to bring a personally owned mobile device beginning in the 2018-2019 school year. The district is currently developing strategies to help our families who are otherwise unable to provide a device themselves. These devices will need to meet certain specifications such as a screen size of at least ten inches (diagonal) and a battery that will last an entire school day.

If you are thinking about purchasing a device for your child now, we want to offer some suggestions to think about so these devices could be used at school in the future. Below are a few ideas of devices that would be acceptable. Access a printable copy of this notice that you can show a salesperson or use to find a device yourself that would meet our requirements. We’ve also worked with a local vendor to set up a web store for you to purchase compatible devices online. The web store can be found at: https://carts.1rti.com/franklin-township/cart/

Some devices that meet our requirements as of August 2017 are:

HP or Dell Chromebook 11 or Chromebook 14

Apple iPad Air or newer (some students might want a Bluetooth keyboard)

Apple MacBook/MacBook Pro/MacBook Air (purchased 2015 or newer)

Most Windows laptops purchased after July 2015 are acceptable

Our schools are not yet BYOD, so there is no requirement any device be brought to school or be used in class, but teachers will have the option to allow them in their classrooms if a student should wish to use a device. These suggestions are available to help you plan.

FTCSC BYOD Device – Recommended Specifications

The device should have at least a 10” screen (the iPad mini will not qualify)

The device must have an 802.11g wireless card or better (N, and/or AC is acceptable)

The device must be able to run a current operating system (as of August 2017):